Last Saturday, a group of us Amideast students took one final trip outside of town, to Wadi Hassa, a river (well, stream) valley located in the dry southern part of Jordan, 2.5 hours south of Amman and just south of Karak.
The trip was a water hike through a part of the upper canyon. After our bus ride down together with the rest of the tour group (a few other students and a group of locals), we began by hiking down to the valley then riding a small natural waterslide into a pool, and continued from there. A good 60-70% of the hike was spent swimming, wading, and fording the river, with the rest hiking through bamboo jungle and rockscapes surrounding the river. There were several places where we could stop and swim, a few waterfalls to go under, a couple of caves, a bamboo jungle in which we slithered through the shallow water like Rambo, and some ledges that we had to jump off of, including one that was around 10-12 feet high. With all of the water, we never got too hot.
Much to my surprise, there was not a lot of wildlife there. We saw some river/cave crabs (about the size of a small a'ama crab) and one small salamander or lungfish that was clinging to a rock near a waterfall. There were also many red dragonflies, a few hornets, and a Biblical swarm of flies.
Also ants, as I found out when I put my bag on top of their nest during our lunch break.
Unfortunately, none of us had a working waterproof camera, so the only pics I have are of the area around the bus that I took post-hike with my phone. Aaasif.
On the way back, we did the party bus routine again. Dumb Americans we.
Good times.
Da bus
The valley in the photo is Wadi Hassa
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